France Télévisions migrated the playout of five premium channels to a single master suite, while maintaining the control and quality monitoring they need using Pixel Power’s PRISMON.
France Télévisions has recently migrated the playout of five premium channels from the same number of dedicated control rooms, to a single master suite. At the same time, they have maintained the control and quality monitoring they need to deliver at the level of a major broadcaster.
The company approached French systems integration partner Euplink, interested in finding a way to manage playout of its five national networks more cost-effectively, involving 22 unique output streams that include news, arts, culture, documentary, entertainment and children’s content.
One of the main goals of this consolidation project was using up to date systems to help ensure a timely response to issues, comprehensive control and monitoring without compromising the integrity of the output. Furthermore, France Télévisions was intending to adopt TSoIP and ST 2110 while maintaining SDI workflows.
Euplink recommended Pixel Power’s PRISMON, software for monitoring and analysis of audio/video real-time content. Its configuration tools have taken a central role in the deployment, used to create several mosaics and re-configure them instantly. PRISMON also supports audio and ancillary data, allowing the operator to select channels to hear, as well as carry out test and measurement on all channels.
These tools have enabled France-tv to develop the concept of the ‘penalty screen’. While displays and metering of all outputs can be arranged to suit the operator, the central display becomes the penalty screen that highlights any issues requiring immediate attention. Relevant test displays also appear on this central screen, and an audio alert sounds to warn the operator that intervention is required.
Regarding the diverse workflows, PRISMON has a unified multi-standard/multi-protocol approach for OTT, SMPTE 2022-1/2 and DVB, and monitors content in both legacy and modern IP-based environments.
“The PRISMON platform has made a significant difference to the efficiency of our operations,” commented Lou Agache, a Project Manager for ‘Final Production’ at France Télévisions. “We’ve been able to consolidate and simplify our monitoring, and the responsive error detection and intuitive displays help our operators supervise all of our outputs confidently.”
The PRISMON quality tests and alerts are fed into France-tv’s EVS Cerebrum broadcast management system for subsequent audit tracking. Through the UHD dual screen multiviewer, users gain operational awareness of all monitored A/V services, which can be expanded by on-screen display of supplementary information per tile. Similar to France-tv’s installation, it can also be deployed as a live IP-baseband multiviewer for studio, production and playout environments.
PRISMON can be integrated with third-party systems like Cerebrum via a RESTful API, an interface that two computer systems use to exchange information securely over the internet, or through a standard SNMP connection. The SNMP protocol shares information between network devices, regardless of the hardware or software in use. It collects and organises information about managed devices on IP networks and can also modify it to change device behaviour.
“PRISMON is an incredibly flexible and scalable solution, delivering so much more than mosaics on a screen,” said Marcus Ruoff, Pixel Power’s Product Manager for PRISMON. “It provides a centralized hub for every aspect of quality control. At the same time, the software-defined architecture is extremely processor efficient – the comprehensive monitoring and control of 22 unique streams at France-tv is all accomplished using a single server – which makes a real difference when considering the carbon footprint of a facility.” www.rohde-schwarz.com
